Volkswagen’s boss Martin Winterkorn has confirmed that the company will be starting production of its super budget car (low cost car) from 2015. The move is mainly seen as a step towards becoming the world’s largest car maker. The step has mainly been incurred to boost the company sales in one of the world’s largest car market, China.
In a recent interview with a German magazine, Volkswagen boss, Winterkorn has confirmed that the company is currently working on the low cost car that will be priced around 6,000 to 7,000 Euros (which is approximately about 4.3 to 5.1 Lakh in Indian currency). He further said that the company is working on this low cost car to capture the emerging markets like India and China. About 3 million cars are sold each year in this segment alone in Chinese market.
The development of the new car will be not be carried out entirely by the Volkswagen itself rather company will be adopting new methods. The base development of the car will be completed in the Germany and then it will be further processed in the China with their partner and the vehicle will be hitting the production line from 2015.
The step has been taken in order to complete the development of car in lowest possible figure. The car will be built partly in a low cost country such as China was the labour and raw material costs are much less than the European market. Further the materials and parts will be obtained from the local sources only that again will result in the cost reduction. It is also expected that the Volkswagen technology will be also used in the new low cost car so further keeping a check on the costs.
Ulrich Hackenberg, Volkswagen’s technical chief has already confirmed that the new car will be arriving in different body styling. It is also quite clear that Volkswagen will be selling the car under a new brand name that has yet not been confirmed.
For now VW is working on creating the first working prototype for its super budget car for the Chinese market. Hackenberg further quoted that the car will not look like a cheap one and will not be designed to fulfill mobility.
The car is expected to hit the production line by 2015.